Immortals of Aveum Review

“There is a wound in our world”, you're told during the opening of Immortals of Aveum. It's a gaping rift that threatens to swallow up Aveum's five kingdoms, and, while the world teeters on the brink of total collapse, battlemages fight a devastating conflict known as the Everwar. This might be a story firmly rooted in fantasy, but its themes are depressingly relevant – folks fighting over who gets to control things, as everything veers ever closer to an extinction event. At the centre of it is protagonist Jak, who, upon discovering that he has magical gifts beyond his reckoning, is drawn into the Everwar. Much first-person magic-shooting fun ensues.

Wise-cracking Jak begins his journey as a down-at-heel street urchin, eking out an existence in the town of Seren, or, rather, the ramshackle wooden 'Underbridge' settlement he calls home. With his pal Luna, Jak soon finds himself battling foes from the kingdom of Rasharn, which leads him to join the eponymous Immortals – a sect of powerful Magni, of which Jak, as a 'Triarch,' able to wield all three colours of magic, is among the most formidable. Using an ancient artefact called a Sigil, Jak can fire off blue magic for accurate strikes (essentially your precision rifle), green magic for rapid-fire assaults, and red magic for devastating shotgun-style blasts.

Immortals of Aveum is somewhat similar to Ghostwire: Tokyo, in that you can cast spells and hurl them at enemies, but developer Ascendant Studios' magical shooter shares more DNA with Call of Duty or Battlefield than it does with anything else, despite some neat RPG elements (including levelling up to acquire 'Ascendancies' that can be spent on upgrading your skills). This is an FPS in fantasy clothing, albeit with plenty of its own tricks, like a lash that enables you to zip to grapple points; the ability to temporarily hover; thrown limpets that slow down whatever they glue themselves to; and numerous other doodads that allow you to solve puzzles, unlocking secrets or opening up new areas across Aveum, where you might find chests containing new Sigils, totems, and rings.

As well as gold and essence used for crafting and upgrading weapons, totems (your lash, spellbreak lenses, and limpet vial), and buff-granting rings at the Forge, looting chests yields health and mana crystals to keep your life and magic topped up. The latter feeds Jak's Fury spells, encompassing stuff like waves of rocks that erupt from the ground, homing torrents of green magic, and explosions of red magic that can help deal with large groups of enemies. Then there's Dominion Mana attacks, combining all three colours for an immolating stream of pure magic that can chew through even the most powerful foe's health gauge. You have plenty of defensive actions at your disposal as well, like a 'Blink' dodge and a magical shield that blocks attacks until it shatters.

As the game's story unfolds and the world gradually expands, Jak steadily gains more and more abilities and magical artefacts, enabling him to travel back to previously visited places via portals, finally understanding what that mysterious crystal you saw earlier does, or how to clear away deposits of pulsating slime known as the 'Lurge'. But what reels you in is Immortals' magic shooter action, each colour of magic having its specific uses against certain enemy types, so red magic is great for peeling away red shields, blue magic is ideal for all-round blasting and for shredding through bubble shields, while green interrupts healing fields so foes can't recharge their health in the middle of a skirmish.

Magic also comes into play during puzzles, shooting colour-coded switches to unlock doors or cause mechanisms to grind into life. And there's a nice balance between challenging combat, enjoyable platforming, and mild puzzling, too, alongside a dose of semi-open-world metroidvania exploration. Ascendant also manages to conjure some truly memorable sights on your quest to put an end to the plotting of Rasharnian warlord Sandrakk, with dreamlike plateaus of floating rock, ethereal leylines you can use as ziplines, and ancient war machines called 'Colossals' rising out of the ocean. Immortals of Aveum is a lovely-looking game, even if the absence of basic in-game visual settings like brightness, contrast, and such is confusing.

During its 15-20+ hour duration, Immortals of Aveum does a bang-up job in telling a fairly engaging fantasy yarn, delivering varied and interesting magic-flinging combat, fun traversal mechanics, and a world brimming with secrets (who are 'The Six' and what happens when you defeat them all?). Visually impressive and boasting action to match its spectacle, Immortals of Aveum is an assured debut from Ascendant Studios and easily in the top two first-person magic shooters of all-time.